Life Is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition
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"In Life is a Miracle, Wendell Berry urges us to begin a "conversation out of school." Believing we are on a course of arrogant and dangerous behavior in science and other intellectual disciplines, this proclamation against modern superstition recommends a shift in priorities and goals. Berry observes, "it is clearly bad for the sciences and the arts to be divided into 'two cultures.' It is bad for scientists to be working without a sense of obligation to cultural tradition.
It is bad for artists and scholars in the humanities to be working without a sense of obligation to the world beyond the artifacts of culture." They must be the subjects of one complex conversation."--BOOK JACKET.
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this song, essentially: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGpoEPcmOK4
i appreciate the sentiment and i agree with regards towards corporate influence on the direction of scientific study (a point i wish was a bit more rigorously examined) and the whole could/should aspect. admittedly, he's not a scientist, though...and sometimes seems as if he's passionately swinging at air. he's upset that SCIENCE generalizes/abstracts things away and should instead consider the individual, yet he generalizes all scientific thought on the basis of one book and attacks that conception of SCIENCE (his annoyance at a strawman conceived in said book is not without irony?). he mentions discussions with a scientist friend of his and how they share similar views on the course of SCIENCE in current academia, and in fact this friend has also published a book in a similar vein to this one which I feel might prove more fruitful in its criticisms on the basis of its writer's greater expertise.
then again, the problem of SCIENCE itself is a bit of a red herring in this book as he's mostly pining for old days of hearth and homestead. he's more disturbed by things in general moving forward, quickly without caution, then SCIENCE in general and chastises certain forms of art for following that trend of experimentation derived from SCIENCE. and he advises a more active role of spirituality (in his case, mostly CHRISTIAN belief) in people's lives. the universe is a stage production and he doesn't wanna look behind the curtains, instead enjoy the show.
i liked the references to literature, especially King Lear, used throughout. Evocative, for sure.
well, it sounds like i am trying to dismantle his stance, but i do essentially agree with his important view on academic careerism and science of the sake of profit and the environment getting screwed over, but it seems he was mostly rallying against the harmful effects of CAPITALISM over SCIENCE.